[theme-reviewers] tracking code in themes

Fri Mar 9 20:01:05 UTC 2012

The very act of pinging a third party upon activation of a Theme - and
doing so without the informed consent of the end user - is a violation of
the free-software principle that users have the right to use software "*without
being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other
specific entity*".

The rest of your arguments still miss the fundamental point that the issue
here is not the usefulness/benefit of the service, but rather that the
*informed
consent of the end user* is paramount, and is required, both as a matter of
adherence to free software philosophy and also as a matter of
wordpress.orgpolicy.

Chip

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Trent Lapinski <trent at cyberchimps.com>wrote:

> For the record, PressTrends is not a "tracker" it doesn't track users
> WordPress usage, or personal information.
>
> It simply tells you when someone activates a theme and reports back the
> version number of the activation and what version of WordPress they are
> using. That's the meat of it. It does a few other minor things, but the
> users aren't be "tracked", and we aren't getting live data from the users
> or any personal information.
>
> Furthermore, this information is publicly available to begin with. By
> viewing the resources / source of any WordPress install you can see the
> stylesheet which contains the version number of the theme. Which means this
> information is publicly available on all WordPress websites running any
> WordPress theme.
>
> Is it wrong to aggregate such information? I do not believe so,  and even
> Otto has stated this is something Automattic has been looking to replicate
> for WordPress.org themselves, so the "ethical" argument for PressTrends
> is entirely invalid.
>
> If WordPress.org offered these same features you would all think its the
> greatest thing since sliced bread, and no one would be raising privacy
> concerns because there is no private information being made available.
>
> No one is having their privacy violated, PressTrends simply aggregates
> useful publicly avaliable analytic data. That's it.
>
>
>
> --Trent Lapinski
> =============
> CEO of CyberChimps LLC
> trent at cyberchimps.com
> Mobile (714) 904-4280
> Twitter @trentlapinski
> http://CyberChimps.com
>
> On Mar 8, 2012, at 6:35 PM, Emil Uzelac wrote:
>
> oh and as far as checking if the Theme is on warez or not is completely
> useless, don't even bother, anyone that sells them commercially will tell
> you not to waste your time, you report one bad link, 5 more will appear in
> few hours, than you report that 5, 20 more will come up shortly after
> that...this is the war we can't win, at least not for right now.
>
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Emil Uzelac <emil at themeid.com> wrote:
>
>> Neither one was good to be honest with you. GA tracks more than just how
>> the Theme is being used and that isn't right. For Adobe, Sure if you let
>> them, I personally don't allow anything to go out, not even simple report
>> back to them when something crashes. We all like more details, better
>> statistics for greater improvement, that's why people invented surveys,
>> polls etc... Most of the time this is covered in support forum, if they
>> like your work, they will tell you a) if something goes wrong b) if there's
>> something that they don't like and just another way of communicating with
>> users or customers if we're talking about commercial Themes.
>>
>> Emil
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Daniel Fenn <danielx386 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> So how is one suppose to check of see if it was downloaded from a werz
>>> site? Adobe does this all the time. Or was it GA that pissed then off?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Emil Uzelac <emil at themeid.com> wrote:
>>> > Back in late 2009 I contracted for commercial Theme site where they
>>> had two
>>> > forms of tracking, one was via Google Analytics and second one hidden
>>> to
>>> > check if the Theme was purchased or downloaded from "" sites. In
>>> matter of
>>> > months they went from "all star" to "where are the customers" type of
>>> thing.
>>> > Long story short users don't like to be tracked one way or another and
>>> > honestly I don't blame them at all. Permission or not "touching things
>>> that
>>> > should not be touched" are never good idea.
>>> >
>>> > If one wants to track and get the general ideas where the Themes go,
>>> simply
>>> > use your very own GA. There are many things you can do with Analytics
>>> beyond
>>> > how many visitors one have on monthly basis. Not 100% accurate, but it
>>> does
>>> > get close.
>>> >
>>> > This is from my marketing perspective. Privacy is issue everywhere
>>> nowadays
>>> > and once this leaks to the public, your sales will go down to toilet,
>>> please
>>> > believe me on this.
>>> >
>>> > Imagine this title on a popular WP News sites "Example Theme Site Now
>>> Tracks
>>> > User's Behavior". warez
>>> >
>>> > Cheers,
>>> > Emil
>>> >
>>> > On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Bruce Wampler <weavertheme at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> As the author of a popular WordPress theme, I would like to add my
>>> strong
>>> >> agreement with the opt-in only policy for trackers such as
>>> PressTrends.
>>> >>
>>> >> I find Trent Lapinski's arguments for the harmlessness of opt-out
>>> tracking
>>> >> self-serving and disingenuous. Anyone with the least bit of
>>> understanding of
>>> >> the difference between opt-in and opt-out, and how that affects user
>>> >> privacy, would never argue for allowing any kind of automatic or
>>> opt-out
>>> >> tracking of any kind in any repository based WordPress theme. It is
>>> simply
>>> >> the wrong thing to do.
>>> >>
>>> >> Maybe PressTrends isn't any different in concept or privacy issues
>>> than
>>> >> Google's tracking code, or even WP stats, but both of those are
>>> opt-in -
>>> >> they don't happen unless the web admin actively adds them.
>>> >>
>>> >> Personally, I believe any sort of tracking should require permission
>>> from
>>> >> the visitor to the site - but that is a much larger battle.
>>> >>
>>> >> Bruce Wampler
>>> >>
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> theme-reviewers mailing list
>>> >> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>> >> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > theme-reviewers mailing list
>>> > theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>> > http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>>
>>
>>
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